Cole pegged them instantly as mother and daughter. The resemblance was clear. The mother was probably in her late forties or early fifties, tall and portly, but regal as a middle-aged Queen Victoria. The daughter was in her late teens or maybe early twenties, gently curved in all the places where her mother was rounded. Even in the harsh battery-powered light in the dusty attic, her good looks drew the attention of the men. She wasn’t pin-up pretty but something more elegant. Oddly, her face was covered in dark smudges, as if it had been rubbed with soot, but that was not enough to hide her obvious attractiveness.
Cole decided that these were not the household servants. No, these were the ladies of the manor.
The mother was still cackling French like an angry hen. Cole had no idea what she was saying and didn’t much care. Again, he waggled the muzzle at them, indicating that they should go downstairs.
When they still didn’t move, Lieutenant Rupert surprised everyone by making the request in French. It sounded halting to Cole’s ears, but apparently it was understandable to the two women.
They got the message and started for the stairs. As the mother went past, Cole grabbed the shotgun out of her hands.
This got her started on a fresh tirade. It was clear that having been forced to come out of the shadows, the woman of the house was now as riled as an angry hen by the intruders in her home.
Returning to the second-floor hallway from the attic, they got things organized and headed down to what Bauer called the drawing room, which had become their headquarters. This time, Cole brought up the rear so that he could shoot anyone who tried to make a run for it — Bauer in particular.
He wasn’t all that worried about the two women. They still needed to figure out what was going on with them, but Cole didn’t see them as a real danger or threat.
In a few minutes, he would find out that he might have been wrong about that.
Downstairs, the warmth of the fireplace was welcome after prowling through the cold rooms above, not to mention the light from the flames themselves. There had been something unnerving about the search through the empty upstairs rooms and then coming across the two women in the attic. It was one thing to face the enemy, quite another to confront the possibility of ghosts and spooks, and something altogether different to find flesh-and-blood occupants.
The warm glow of the fireplace cast a welcoming light in the otherwise dark and cold room. The flickering flames danced on the walls, providing a sense of comfort and safety. The burning logs crackled and popped, sounding vaguely to Cole’s ears like distant gunfire in the otherwise quiet room.
The quiet did not last for long — there was a storm brewing in the form of the indignant lady of the house, who did not seem to like the feeling that she was now a prisoner in her own home, even if she was theoretically on the same side as the soldiers.
She had held her tongue in the attic, but within moments of arriving downstairs, the scowling woman lit into them with a torrent of words that Cole couldn’t understand, but considering that her eyes blazed with anger, the woman’s meaning was clear enough.
Cole and Vaccaro had a limited understanding of French. Like most GIs, they could pick out a word here and there after having been in France since D-Day. They had already discovered that Rupert spoke French and were surprised that Bauer was also able to communicate in that language. Adding to the mix, the girl spoke English with a heavy accent that made her even more endearing.
Based on his own experience with the French Resistance fighter Jolie Molyneaux, Cole knew that a girl could make the weather forecast sound like a love poem if she said it in a French accent.
Under different circumstances — perhaps an R & R dance arranged with some local girls in attendance — the three younger men would have been vying for her attention. But they now watched one another warily.
The daughter translated for everyone’s benefit. “My mother wishes to know, what is the meaning of this?” she said politely. Meanwhile, her mother was gesturing angrily at Cole and the others. “She says, ‘How dare you come into our home like this!’”
Because he was ostensibly in charge, Lieutenant Rupert turned to face her, doing his best to look official. “Madame,” he began calmly. “We apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused.”
“Inconvenience?” Through her daughter the woman made it plain that she scoffed at the lieutenant’s words. “This is an outrage! You have no right to invade our home!”
“We are just passing through,” Rupert explained. “We’ll be out of your house soon enough. Until then, I fear that we must ask you to remain in this room with us.”
Upon hearing what the lieutenant had to say, the woman’s face flushed red with indignation. Another stream of angry words followed.
